You aren’t alone. Vegan female athletes are on the rise. If you decide to embrace the vegan lifestyle, you’ll be joining the ranks of elite athletes like:

Thinking about going vegan?

You aren’t alone. Vegan female athletes are on the rise. If you decide to embrace the vegan lifestyle, you’ll be joining the ranks of elite athletes like:

• Venus Williams, who has won four-time Olympic gold medals and countless Grand Slam titles.
• Tia Blanco, professional surfer and winner of the 2015 and 2016 World Women’s Surfing Championship.
• Hannah Teter, three-time Olympic gold medal-awarded snowboarder.
• Meghan Dumel, world champion, and Olympic medalist figure skater.

The first thing anyone thinks about when the words “vegan” and “athlete” are paired together is, how do you get enough protein? The truth is that it isn’t easy. Being a high-performing athlete is already difficult. Balancing nutrition, training, and recovery takes an incredible investment of time, fierce willpower, and the vision to succeed. Adding any type of elimination restriction to your diet compounds the difficulty you’ll face fueling your body for performance.

But, let’s be clear. This article isn’t about whether you should or shouldn’t go vegan as an athlete. Some athletes choose to go vegan because they have a family history of medical problems they hope the diet will help them avoid. Other choose to go vegan for ethical, political, or environmental reasons. I’m not writing this to make that call for you. I’m writing this because my passion is helping female athletes perform better.

How you fuel your body plays a huge part in determining if you can get the results you need and how fast you can achieve them.

Yes, you can be a top performing athlete and also be vegan. BUT, just like any elimination diet, going vegan means paying considerable attention to your nutrition. If you’re vegan, or considering a switch, here’s what you must know before you start.

Are You Getting Sufficient Energy?

You must be consuming enough energy to meet your activity levels. Elite vegan athletes, such as 10-time Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis, have discovered the biggest challenge athletes face when changing to a vegan diet isn’t necessary protein, but in consuming enough calories. James Loomis, medical director of the PCRM’s Barnard Medical Center, admits that packing on calories with a vegan diet is still not easy for athletes. “Some people struggle with it,” he says. “Try eating 1,000 calories of quinoa or blueberries.”

Still, elite vegan athletes claim a variety of health benefits can be associated with the vegan diet such as:

• Reduced risk of heart disease
• Lower LDL (the cholesterol that clogs arteries)
• Aiding type 2 diabetes
• Lower risk of cancer

But there’s a problem, we really don’t have enough data. Until more science is available, we really only have the testimonials of a small percentage of athletes who follow a vegan diet.

Meanwhile, there is a significant amount of evidence showing this association may just be due to an overall decrease in caloric consumption since many of these diseases (type 2 diabetes, high LDL) are related to an excessive caloric surplus. Other nutritional studies, like this, give some real food for thought on whether the vegan diet can really provide everything an athlete needs to perform at an optimum level, especially when it comes to protein and fat.

The fact is that the majority of female athletes are not eating enough food to meet the energy requirements of their training. And vegan female athletes? They are at an even higher chance of under-fueling their body to meet their activity level. Female athletes who under-eat are at serious risk of injury, extreme fatigue, sickness, mood swings, and long term health issues like the female athlete triad.

Data not only indicates that vegans consume less energy compared to omnivores, but their diets are lower in protein, lower in fat, and are at risk of being deficient of essential vitamins and minerals such as calcium, B12, iron, and zinc. Diets low in protein increase the risk of muscle loss, especially if you aren’t hitting the weight room during the season.

Diets lower in fat increase the risk of under-fueling and hormonal issues leading to a disruption in the menstrual cycle, and diets deficient in certain nutrients increase the risk of extreme fatigue, irritability, sickness, and delayed recovery times.

All of this means vegan athletes who don’t take the time to research or work with a nutrition coach are at serious risk of undermining not only their performance goals but their long term health.

Vegan Athletes Risk Underfueling

Diets that are plant-based tend to have low energy density as well as promote early satiety. This is because plants are full of fiber and water, two components that fill you up. However, diets that are high in fiber can also lead to gastrointestinal distress. This distress has been shown to decrease appetite levels and therefore total energy consumption. It isn’t that vegan athletes are trying to run an energy deficit. Most of the time they are under-fueling and don’t even know it.

To make matters worse, female athletes, in general, are already at a higher risk for under-fueling. High stress, lack of nutrition education, poor sleep habits, and social pressure (we see you Instagram models) all contribute to under-fueling in the world of high performing women.

Underfueling blocks you from reaching the top of your game.

Add any type of elimination diet to that mix and you have to be extremely careful, especially if your sport is high intensity—soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, and weightlifting all require a significant amount of energy for both performances as well as recovery. So what happens if you are not eating enough?

Underfueling leads to a world of problems for the female athlete. If you aren’t eating enough, you’re at risk for increased risk of developing low bone mineral density. What doesn’t this mean? Decreased bone mineral density equals an increased chance of injury. Low energy intake also compromises your immune system. More sickness means less time for training and competition. Again, not the ideal scenario for a female looking to perform!

Another result is a decrease in body weight. But remember, when you see the number on the scale drop, this does not indicate a drop in fat but just a drop in mass. Females who drop weight fast increase their chances for muscle loss (especially if they are not strength training). Losing muscle reduces your strength. Lower strength leads to decreased training capacity and once again, an increased risk of injury. When you under-fuel, the problems just snowball.

But, the question isn’t just about the quantity of fuel. It’s also about quality. Remember, as an athlete your body prefers carbohydrates as a source of fast energy during performance and fats as a source of slower energy to aid in recovery and satiation. Proteins are better used by the body as a building block. A lack of protein creates a scenario that favors muscle loss, strength decreases, and skyrocketing rates of injury.

Do Vegan Athletes Get Enough Protein?

Protein is vital to athletic performance. It serves us in two ways:

1. It acts as insurance to prevent muscle breakdown
2. It acts as a substrate for muscle synthesis

During your season, your goal is to maintain a positive balance between muscle protein breakdown and muscle protein synthesis. When you eat more protein than you are breaking down, you are on the road to recovery and adaptation. When you eat less protein than your body breaks down, you are on the road to decreased performance and increased injury.

As a female athlete, you need to consume more protein than the non-athletic population because you break down more muscle. When you add strength training to the mix (and you should) muscle breakdown increases even more. So, when you choose a vegan diet, consuming enough protein to match this breakdown rate can become a bit complicated. Studies show vegan athletes consistently consume far less protein than their omnivorous and vegetarian counterparts.

Those vegan Olympic superstars we mentioned earlier? Behind the scenes, they are investing a ton of resources into making sure their protein needs are met. As a vegan athlete, it’s not as simple as just eating more peanut butter.

Why?

Most plant-based proteins are incomplete and difficult to digest. In order to optimize protein intake for a vegan athlete, special attention needs to be paid to both the quantity and quality of the protein consumed.

This leads us back to the original question: can vegan athletes eat enough protein? There are some awesome vegan athletes performing at the top of their sport. Can it work? Yes.

You can get enough protein as a vegan athlete. But the incompleteness of plant-based proteins, as well as their digestibility, present another set of challenges you must consider.

The Challenges of Vegan Protein

How digestible is your plant protein?

What you eat, you don’t necessarily digest and absorb. Plant protein has been shown to be less digestible than animal protein. This means even if you are eating the same weight of protein from rice, peas, and hemp as you are from eggs, chicken, and beef, the amount absorbed by the body will be significantly higher from the animal versus the plant sources.

For this reason, it has been suggested that vegans need to consume more grams of protein to compensate for this poorer digestibility.

Regarding protein, the following consumption guidelines should be used:

• 1.4-2g per kg per day is suggested for plant-based eaters
• 0.8-1.4g per kg per day is suggested for animal protein eaters

This suggestion is even higher for vegan athletes that are in an energy deficit and can range from 1.8g to 2.7g per kg per day.

How Complete Is Your Protein?

Most plant-based proteins are incomplete. This means they are missing the essential amino acids as well as being limited in branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) provided by their animal-based alternatives. Your body does not produce these essential amino acids. The only way to get them is through the food you eat—and BCAAs are important.

Essential amino acids, such as leucine play a huge role in promoting recovery and adaptation from exercise. Omnivorous and vegetarian athletes are going to have an easier time fueling their body’s needs for these amino acids.

Milk-based proteins have been shown to help promote muscle protein synthesis in part due to the richness of the BCAA content. When comparing soy protein supplements to milk protein supplements, muscle hypertrophy is significantly better in the milk protein population most likely due to its higher amino acid composition.

Coach Pappas at Relentless Athletics in Hatfield, Pennsylvania

So, how do vegans improve their BCAA and essential amino acid consumption? This is where following a nutrition program becomes critical. It all comes down to food choices. Vegan athletes will need to consume a variety of protein sources to secure the BCAA and essential amino acids their body needs to recover and adapt.

For example, vegans can turn to beans and legumes for lysine and soy beans and lentils for leuicine. Seeds, tree nuts, and chickpeas can provide BCAAs.

Autopilot Won’t Work

You can’t be a vegan athlete and put your nutrition on autopilot. Many vegan athletes choose to supplement their whole food protein consumption. Options like soy, soy isolate, pea, rice, hemp, and plant-based blends can be a great option for those who have a hard time consuming enough protein through food alone. These plant based protein sources do help recovery and foster muscle hypertrophy (growth) as long as they are paired with resistance training.

So, do we recommend going vegan to our female athletes? As I said, this article isn’t meant to convince you one way or another. As a nutrition coach, I want to help female athletes succeed regardless of what dietary restriction they may have. Can you be successful on a vegan diet? Absolutely. But like all elimination diets, it takes a special amount of consideration.

As an athlete, you’ve got a lot to juggle and you don’t have the time to become a nutritional expert while you’re pushing your limits. If your considering any type of elimination diet—vegan, lactose-free, etc—put in the time to do some research or work with a nutrition coach to help educate you on what your body needs.

References:

1. Depressive Symptoms and Vegetarian Diets: Results from the Constances Cohort. Matta J, Czernichow S, Kesse-Guyot E, Hoertel N, Limosin F, Goldberg M, Zins M, Lemogne C.Nutrients. 2018 Nov 6; 10(11). Epub 2018 Nov 6.

2. Food Products as Sources of Protein and Amino Acids-The Case of Poland. Górska-Warsewicz H, Laskowski W, Kulykovets O, Kudlinska-Chylak A, Czeczotko M, Rejman K.Nutrients. 2018 Dec 13; 10(12). Epub 2018 Dec 13.

3. Position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada: Vegetarian diets. American Dietetic Association., Dietitians of Canada.J Am Diet Assoc. 2003 Jun; 103(6):748-65.

4. The long-term health of vegetarians and vegans. Appleby PN, Key TJ.Proc Nutr Soc. 2016 Aug; 75(3):287-93. Epub 2015 Dec 28.

5. Vegetarian, vegan diets and multiple health outcomes: A systematic review with meta-analysis of observational studies. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2017 Nov 22;57(17):3640-3649. doi: 10.1080/10408398.2016.1138447.

The post A Word of Advice to the Vegan Athlete appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

If the muscle strain is severe, you could be out for months.

You’re probably thinking:

• “What caused the strain in the first place?”
• “Is there anything I can do to get back into play faster?”
• ”How can I make sure this doesn’t ever happen again?”

Pull your hammy? Strain your quad? Well, it looks like you are out of commission for a couple of weeks!

If the muscle strain is severe, you could be out for months.

You’re probably thinking:

• “What caused the strain in the first place?”
• “Is there anything I can do to get back into play faster?”
• ”How can I make sure this doesn’t ever happen again?”

You’re not alone. This article targets how muscle strains happen, what you should do to recover, and how to prevent future strains.

The Dreaded Muscle Injury

Your muscle is a pretty cool tissue. It has the ability to produce force and absorb force by physically changing its length. When you apply load to your muscle, your muscle has to absorb that load. As it absorbs, the muscle lengthens (eccentrically stretches). If the load is too large or too sudden, the cells inside your muscle tear. So, the more cells that tear, the greater the severity of your muscle strain.

There are two ways load is forced on a muscle: active and passive. What is a passive load? Think about when you perform a stretch. As you stretch the muscle you impose a force that is absorbed by the muscle as it elongates. If the load is too big or too sudden, your muscles will be stretched beyond their recoverable limit (back to its resting state).

Load can also be applied to your muscles actively, either from an outside force or from its own contractions. Think about when you run down the court on a break away in your basketball game. As you sprint at full speed your muscles must contract and produce high forces very rapidly and if you force the muscle to contract too strongly or rapidly, the resulting stretch of the muscle will be too great.

Like most injuries, some muscle strains are worse than others. Your muscle belly itself is composed of many smaller muscle cells. As the load applied to the muscle exceeds your muscle’s capacity to absorb that load, these smaller cells are stretched beyond their limits. The result? They tear—and the more cells that are torn, the greater the severity of the strain.

When the majority of cells in a muscle reach beyond their stretch limit, a complete muscle tear occurs. Not all cells in your muscles are created equal. Some muscles are more prone to strain than others. This is because muscle strains occur where your muscle cells transition into their tendon (the tissue that connects muscle to bone). This transitional region is prone to strains because the tissue in this area is neither quite as strong as the muscle belly or the tendon.^{2, 3} It’s a literal “weak link.”

Because most tears occur in the weaker transitional areas of muscle, we see more strains in muscles that have two joints (or two tendon connections to bones). This occurs in areas like your hamstrings (at your knee and hip) or your biceps (at your elbow or shoulder).

How You Can Recover Faster

Like the majority of your body tissues, muscle has the capacity to heal itself. But before you can get back to your game after a muscle strain, you need to understand how a muscle heals—and what that means for your recovery.

Your muscles will heal after a tear, but not through growing new muscle. Instead, your body uses what we call “foreign” tissue (or scar tissue) to patch in the damage. This foreign tissue is weaker and less elastic than the muscle tissue itself. Unfortunately, this means that the transitional area of your muscle just got a bit weaker. This is why muscles that were previously strained have a higher chance of re-injury.

If the strain is minor, your muscle will repair within three to six weeks. Fortunately with these injuries, if the muscles surrounding the scar tissue hypertrophies (or grows through strength training), your muscles will have no real loss of function/strength. For more severe tears, the reparation process can take several months.

Keep in mind that the dense scar tissue that results can impair future muscle function and contribute to future pain. What does that mean for recovery? The secret to getting back in the game after a muscle strain is to keep your injury site at rest while still keeping your body active. Like all injuries, allowing the angry tissues to calm down is key—this means staying away from activity that aggravates the area.

However, this does not mean that you should stop all activity. Athletes who completely rest after experiencing injuries like muscle tears actually increase their chances for re-injury. If you rest completely, your body will decondition.

This decrease in fitness means:

1. You will have a slower recovery time.
2. Your injured area will have decreased strength and capacity to handle loads in the future.

This is why athletes who train around their injury or “relatively rest” can improve recovery. Maintenance of conditioning with different modalities that do not aggravate the injured area has a crossover effect. Working the non-injured limb decreases the time it takes for the injured limb to essentially “catch up.” If you are suffering from a muscle strain, make sure you let your tissues heal while working your other ones to stay strong.

What About Stretching?

Let’s put our thinking hats on. If a muscle strain is just a bunch of small muscle fiber tears caused by too much load and too much stretch then if we stretch after a strain we will only add to the problem! In the acute phase of the tear, you need to let the tissues relax. This means that you have to leave them alone.

Work around the injury to ensure you maintain good blood circulation so that your body can do its thing. As the injury starts to heal and pain is reduced, we do want to regain our range of motion (ROM) at the site of injury. This is where a lot of old school methodologies like static stretching could play a part, but as we discussed in our previous article, improving a joint’s ROM will not reduce your chance of injury without gaining strength within that range of motion.

I’d like to be clear, static stretching will not make you stronger. Without strengthening an improved range of motion, better positions alone will not be enough to reduce your chance of injury.⁴

Luckily, as the authors of Strength and Conditioning for the Female Athlete explain, “every strength session an athlete does is a flexibility-strength workout.” This means through lifting, an athlete will not only return to her original baseline strength but become even stronger than she was before.

So, when can you stretch? Think of stretching as something that may help you reduce the sensation of pain. If you’re feeling tight, go ahead and do some stretches or foam rolling after your workout.

Here’s how to combat the three things that influence your chances of getting a muscle strain.

1. Little to No Warm Up

You have to make time to warm up. So what’s the recipe for a good warm up?

• Use lower intensity movements (aerobic) that aim to gradually elevate your heart rate.
• Practice of movement patterns to progress into full play.
• Think hamstring sweeps, inchworms, to high knees, to sprints.
• Think split squats, to bodyweight squats, to goblet squats, to back squats.

Body Weight Split Squat from Restless Athletics.

The goal of the warm-up is to not only prepare the body physically for movement but also mentally. When you practice the movements you wish to perform later at higher intensities, you improve your motor control.

2. Inadequate Strength and Mobility

Strains occur when your muscle reaches its threshold for a load. By improving your body’s capacity to handle higher loads, the better chance you have at avoiding a hammy strain next season.

Research has consistently demonstrated the positive relationship between athletes engaged in a properly executed strength training program and reduced injury risks. At the end of the day, we know injuries occur when the stress applied is too high. If we want our bodies to be able to handle these high stresses, we must prepare them better.

Strength training acts as a tool to reduce your injury risk simply because it improves your tissues ability to handle high loads.⁶ When performed with an attention to movement quality, the athlete improves her motor control leading to both improved performance and decreased injury risk. What we are saying is that the athlete with a higher work capacity can handle higher loads, do more work, recover better from that work, improve at a faster rate, and can reduce the chance of being sidelined.

3. Excessive Fatigue

So, I think we understand by now that strains occur when loads are too fast or too big. But what does fatigue have to do with it?

When muscles are continually loaded (like in a three-hour volleyball practice or all day tournament with insufficient recovery), they fatigue. When your muscles are fatigued, their elastic qualities, as well as those of your tendons, decrease. This means there is less wiggle room for your muscles to stretch. Less wiggle room equates to a higher likelihood they will tear.

When your central nervous system is fatigued (think that drained feeling), there is greater likelihood your movement patterns deteriorate. In addition, poor mechanics can contribute to improper muscle loading, also increasing the likelihood of strain.

So, how can you avoid fatigue? Fatigue is a necessary factor in making physical improvements. Your body fatigues as a result of being broken down, and your body cannot build back up for the better without first being broken down. Your muscles will always fatigue with increased volume of play: training, practice, or games. We can reduce this type of fatigue through recovery methods like ice baths and foam rolling. However, your body will naturally recover (and adapt) from fatigue with sufficient sleep and nutrition.

Nervous system fatigue is another necessary player in the improvement game. If you want to learn a new skill, you have to stress the system. Unfortunately, this type of stress is also felt through other aspects of our life—think school/work, social components, and other emotional factors that influence how you feel. We can reduce this type of stress through methods in addition to sleep and nutrition such as relaxation, massage, meditation, and even laughter.

Watch Over Your Muscles

If you load your muscles by stretching too hard or too fast by performing sudden intense movements, they can tear. The severity of this tear depends on the amount of load applied and the time your muscle experiences the load. With enough rest for tissue recovery, plus strength training for improved work capacity and strength, you could be back in action in just a couple of weeks. But beware—completely resting or jumping back in the game too soon could put you out for the season.

Strength training is key. You can improve your ability to handle these high loads by hitting the weight room. Remember, a stronger female athlete is more resilient to any force that comes her way.

References:

1. Heiderscheit, B. C., Sherry, M. A., Silder, A., Chumanov, E. S., & Thelen, D. G. (2010). Hamstring strain injuries: recommendations for diagnosis, rehabilitation, and injury prevention. The Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy, 40(2), 67–81.

2. Whiting W, Zernicke R. Biomechanics of Musculoskeletal Injury. 2nd ed. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics; 2008.

3. Tidball J, Salem G, Zernicke R. Site and Mechanical Conditions for Failure of Skeletal Muscle in Experimental Strain Injuries. J Appl Physiol 1993;74:1280–6.

4. Anderson, J. C. “Stretching Before and After Exercise: Effect on Muscle Soreness and Injury Risk“. Journal of Athletic Training 40.3 (2005): 218–220. Print.

5. Sargent, D., Clarke, R. (2018). Strength and Conditioning for Female Athletes. Mobility for Performance in Female Athletes. Marlborough: Crowood. pp 111-139.

6. Malone, Shane, Hughes, Brian, Doran, Dominic A., Collins, Kieran, Gabbett. Tim J. Can the workload–injury relationship be moderated by improved strength, speed and repeated-sprint qualities? Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport.

The post The 101 on Muscle Strains appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

To begin your pyramid, think of the different tools you can use to help improve your performance as situated in a pyramid shape. At the peak of the pyramid is the sport specific skill you are trying to improve. For a volleyball player, that could mean harder hits, or for a basketball athlete, that could mean a higher vertical jump.

Practicing these skills are necessary when trying to develop them, but from a physiological perspective, the rate and extent of their development depend on the physiological characteristics they are built upon (the base of the player pyramid).

At the base of your pyramid are the training tools that help develop the physical and neuromuscular characteristics needed for you to perform your sport. Although less sport specific, these are the tools that help you establish the foundational qualities of your athleticism—work capacity, strength-speed-power, and neuromuscular coordination. Think of these qualities as the necessary resources from which you develop sports skills like stronger legs and hips for a higher vertical or greater muscular coordination for harder hits.

Before you can effectively develop your sport-specific skills, you need to first establish the base of these skills. For a female athlete, you can consider building your base with these three foundational qualities:

• Work capacity
• Strength-Speed-Power Continuum
• Neuromuscular efficiency

Work Capacity

Your work capacity can be defined as the total amount of work (or load) your body can both tolerate and recover from—think about your capacity as a cup that can only hold so much liquid. In order to improve, an athlete must be able to work within this threshold amount and at a certain level that introduces a necessary stress to elicit an adaptive response. This means you need to work hard enough to improve, but not too much that you begin breaking down.

If an athlete is limited by her ability to handle sufficient workloads (she currently has a tiny cup), she will never be able to expose her body to the level of stress needed to improve.

For example, if you really want to improve your vertical, but you have been sitting on the couch since the end of last season, you can’t just jump into hard training and expect your performance improve—at this point, your cup is small. While hard training is necessary for adaptation, if your body is not ready to handle that hard training, you will only see decreased performance and eventually break down.

The athlete who is better able to handle higher workloads is also able to work harder and with higher volumes to direct improved performance—far before reaching the point of break down.

So, if you want to train hard, you have to first train to improve your capacity to do hard work.

Think of your work capacity as having three main components:

• Your ability to tolerate high workloads
• Your ability to recover from these workloads
• Your capacity to resist fatigue (mentally and physically)

You can develop these components with general aerobic work (things like swimming, rowing, and walking) and with higher volumes of resistance training (full-body general strength and movement training).

By performing progressively higher volumes of activity at low to moderate intensities of training, your body is able to prepare itself for the hard training it will have to perform in order to drive performance improvements. This is the type of training that helps you increase the size of your cup so it can hold more later.

Strength-Speed-Power Continuum

Now that you have the capacity to build your athletic qualities, it’s time to start stressing your body to push it to improve. If you want to improve your vertical, you must prioritize strengthening your movements long before you start adding more jumping to your program. There is clear and repeatable evidence demonstrating that an overall strong foundation of maximal strength need first be established prior to integrating speed and power based training.¹

Newton’s second law (force = mass x acceleration) demonstrates the direct relationship between increased force and increased acceleration. When considering this law with a performance perspective, the greater the force that can be produced in a defined period of time, the greater the acceleration.

This means with improved strength through resistance training, the greater ability you have to produce higher forces at higher speeds. As a result, the athlete that is stronger can produce higher forces to propel her body into the air and jump higher.

So how strong is strong enough before a female athlete can start training to develop her speed and power? A review by Haff and Nimphius recommend that as minimum lower body strength requirement to realize superior power outputs, female athletes should be able to squat twice their body weight.

Of course, reviews like these vary in the types, depths, and technicality of the squats being performed in the study, but the overall message is clear: females need to develop their strength before introducing speed, agility, and power training.

Although speed and agility training are necessary for all athletes when teaching mechanics, the actual physiological qualities that can be developed through more complex drills (to actually help you improve your speed and force production) are directly dependent on the level of strength first established.⁴

Trying to further develop an athlete’s speed and power output before establishing her ability to produce higher forces is not only a waste of time and money, but it also puts your athlete at higher injury risk.

Neuromuscular Efficiency

What is neuromuscular efficiency? It refers to the interaction of the nervous system (your brain) and the muscle firing (contractions) to produce force. Greater neuromuscular efficiency has been demonstrated to improve speed and agility performance. More efficient connections help your body produce greater force in movements such as sprinting and changing direction.

How can training help improve this connection? When we train at or near maximal intensities, we are able to help our body improve this connection. Bouts of near max intensity movements can consist of performing a heavy 1RM back squat (of course with first well-established technique), performing a heavy snatch or clean and jerk (again technique first), or performing max velocity sprints and max height box jumps.

These activities help improve your neuromuscular efficiency by developing:

• Neuromuscular coordination (your brain-body connection)
• Intra-muscular coordination (multiple muscle groups acting together)
• Inter-muscular coordination (multiple muscle cells working together within a muscle)¹

Training lifts like a 1RM back squat are considered high force but lower speed. They help your body learn how to recruit a lot of muscle (acting together) for production of maximal amount of force, at the expense of some velocity. Training lifts like a snatch or a clean and jerk are considered high force and high velocity because they train your body to produce pretty high forces (not as high as back squats) at higher velocities.⁵

Training fast sprints or performing plyometrics like box jumps are considered low force and high velocity because they train your body to move itself (lower force) at near max speeds. The application of these training modalities is all important when considering the pyramid of your player development.

If you want to improve your vertical, you need to make sure your work capacity is large enough for hard training. Your strength needs to be adequate enough to develop your speed and power, and your speed and power training should progressively train your body to showcase those athletic qualities into more sport specific skills.

Your Abilities As a Player

Transference of your athletic qualities such as strength, speed, power, and agility to more sport specific tasks, like a higher vertical, can be trained with tools that are closer to your actual sport. These are the tools that persist at the peak of your pyramid.

When considering using box jumps to improve your jumping ability, they are a far weaker stimulus in directing your development compared to tools found on the lower ends of the pyramid like the back squat and power clean. However, box jumps are extremely beneficial when teaching an athlete how to transfer her newly acquired strength and power to more sport specific movements.

For a volleyball athlete who wants to improve her vertical, implementing plyometrics and other jump training to help her improve her performance are necessary but only after she employs other tools to help her build her work capacity, strength, and power. Implementing box jumps or other plyometrics first, before establishing strength and body awareness, may help the athlete improve her jump performance at first, but not for the long-term.

Remember, higher jumps are the goal, but not necessarily the means of achieving the goal. When considering the development of a skill, you must first develop the qualities from which the skill is developed.

Your athleticism is the base. Your skills as a player are your peak. Want a higher peak? Then stop training only at the peak, and start developing your base.

References:

1. Gambetta, V. Athletic Development. (2010). The Art & Science of Functional Sports Conditioning. Champaign: Human Kinetics.

2. Sargent, D., Clarke, R. (2018). Strength and Conditioning for Female Athletes. Strength and Power. Marlborough: Crowood. Pp 23-57.

3. Haff, G.G. and Nimphius, S. (2012) Training principles for power. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 34(6), 2-12.

4. Sargent, D., Clarke, R. (2018). Strength and Conditioning for Female Athletes. Speed and Agility Development for Female Athletes. Marlborough: Crowood. pp 73-90. .

5. Hedrick, A. and Wada, H. (2009) Weightlifting movements: do the benefits outweigh the risks? Strength and Conditioning Journal, 30(6), 26-35.

The post The Pyramid of Athletic Development appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

At least in the short-term.

Tight muscles are normal, especially if you are training hard and pushing your body to excel both on the field and in the gym. But tight muscles can also affect how you feel, how you move, and how you perform. Many of us turn to foam rolling to help out those tight muscles, and foam rolling is a great way to feel less restricted, improve your range of motion during movement, and pave the way for higher performance.

At least in the short-term.

Beware, foam rolling is not the key to changing your tissues to improve your range of motion and movement quality in the long-term.

Self-myofascial release (SMR) techniques (like foam rolling) can be used in the moment and are an effective short-term solution. They’re a good alternative to an ibuprofen, but ultimately using foam rollers does not change your tissues as compared to other modalities.

Let’s dig into the main components of foam rolling:

1. What is foam rolling?
2. Does foam rolling change your range of motion (ROM)?
3. When does foam rolling work?

What Is Foam Rolling?

Foam rolling is a type of self-myofascial release. So, if you’re wondering what myofascial is, let me explain. The term myofascial refers to the fascia surrounding your muscles. Fascia is the connective tissue that surrounds the muscle, blood vessels, and nerves. Your fascia can be thought of as the glue that holds all other body tissues together.

• Fascia may be responsible for reducing your ROM if it becomes restricted.¹
• Repetitive movements or high volume loading patterns (like during an athlete’s season) creates a dysfunction within the fascial system which leads to an inflammatory response.
• When your muscles spasm, they result in knots or trigger points (micro spasms) that create weak adhesions in your soft tissues. These adhesions produce pain and possibly contribute to the reduction in your ROM and performance.²
• Self-myofascial release is a common way to alleviate the pain and decrease the ROM associated with the overactive muscle and fascial restrictions.

Think of using a foam roller as a type of personal massage. When you have a tight, painful muscle rubbing on that muscle seems to help it feel better, right? Foam rollers are meant to work the same way. Using a foam roller is a way to help tell your muscles to relax when in spasm. By providing mechanical stress to your muscles, it signals to your body to decrease muscle tension.

In the moment, it brings relief and can help stop the feeling of pain or discomfort. But what about the fascia adhesions?

Consider this, when you wear a backpack all day, do your shoulder muscles get permanently pushed down because “adhesions are broken” and your fascia is getting released? The answer is no—so using a foam roller isn’t doing that either.

Some fitness gurus will say that foam rolling can create long-term changes in your tissue. But the truth is that there is not enough evidence to support this view. Using a foam roller for a massage is not going to “break adhesions” resulting from muscle spasms.

Although research shows us foam rolling does not really change these “adhesions” what we do know is that it changes our perception of pain, and when an athlete perceives discomfort, her range of motion is going to be affected.

Foam Rolling and Your Range of Motion

When your muscles are in spasm, that tightness is going to cause discomfort when you move. Think about it this way, if you have tight hip flexors, performing a squat or sprinting at max speed is going to hurt. So what do you do?

Rolling on a foam roller or a lax ball on your hip flexors can definitely help decrease this discomfort. A number of studies have shown significant acute improvements in ROM as a result of SMR.^{2, 3} This makes sense when we remember how the mechanical pressure of the ball or roller is going to tell your muscles to chill out. Muscles that are less tense move in a way that allow you to improve your ROM discomfort free. However, it is important to note that these ROM improvements are acute and often fleeting. Numerous studies have shown a return to previous ROM after 10-min post foam rolling.³

Simply put, foam rolling is not a way to change your tissues for the long run just like sitting on your butt all day isn’t going to make your butt permanently flat. Your tissues do not change in the long-run based on pressure alone.

So, how do you get your tissues to change? How can you actually improve your mobility and flexibility? By using resistance training.

“By definition, full range resistance training is a form of dynamic stretching that challenges flexibility. Every strength session an athlete does is a flexibility-strength workout, and as such will lead to increases in not only ROM over time, but more importantly concurrent increases in strength over that full range.”¹

Strength will provide the necessary stability and motor control required to safely realize any new ROM (improved mobility and flexibility) in a sport-specific movement pattern. Improving your ROM and strength within that ROM not only increases your performance but decreases your risk of injury.³

Quickly it becomes pretty obvious that foam rolling alone is not going to adequately deliver the range of motion and strength in that range of motion needed for female athletes.

The question then becomes: when can foam rolling be useful to the female athlete?

When Does Foam Rolling Fit In?

So, we know that foam rolling is not a way to improve your flexibility or mobility in the long-term. But we do know that foam rolling helps relieve a feeling of discomfort and tightness.

For an athlete who is feeling discomfort or tightness, foam rolling is a way to alleviate discomfort before implementing other training methods that will help her in the long run. Let’s consider an athlete about to perform a back squat in her strength training session but her knee is feeling super tight and restricted. She should spend some time preparing her tissues for the session through movement.

For example, having an athlete perform slow split squats will help introduce a type of eccentric stretch to help her hip flexors relax and alleviate some pulling on her knee.⁴ This type of movement is going to help prepare her tissues to perform a similar movement pattern later but with a heavier demand or load.

More videos can be found on Relentless Athletics’ YouTube channel

Remember, foam rolling is going to help alleviate the perception of pain or discomfort. If this pain is inhibiting you from moving (your goal), foam rolling your hip flexors for a couple of minutes can help your body’s perception of pain to chill out.

Now that the pain is decreased, its time to move. After foam rolling, re-introduce those split squats to help eccentrically stretch your hips through slow and controlled movements. Then it’s time to load the tissue and back squat.

Through the back squat, we are not only getting the body to move through a full range of motion at her knees and hips, but we are strengthening that range of motion. Remember, strength is what provides the necessary stability and motor control necessary to achieve a long-lasting range of motion in a sport-specific movement pattern.

The Moral of the Story

Please stop foam rolling first. Foam rolling is going to help you decrease your perception of tightness and discomfort, but it is not going to help you prepare your tissues for movement the way you want.

With only 24 hours in a day and only an hour or two in the gym, laying on a foam roller is not the best use of your time to prepare your body to move. Remember, the goal of any athletic performance (whether it be a back squat in the gym or a high vertical in your basketball game) is movement.⁵

• If you feel tight, focus first on the goal of movement (and not a stretch) to relieve the sensation.
• Try performing a couple of slow and controlled body weight or goblet hold split squats or half kneeling presses to alleviate tightness. If that doesn’t work, then we can talk about how foam rolling fits into the equation.
• Think of foam rolling as a way to relieve some of that discomfort so you can move later without popping an ibuprofen.

But do we want to implement fo first? No, as it is not essential to our goal of movement.

But if we try to move and we still feel pain, rolling out some of the discomforts can help.

Studies do show there is a possible decrease in DOMS (delayed muscle soreness) when athletes introduce a 10-minute bout of foam rolling post exercise session.¹ This is great if we need to perform at our highest the next day, but don’t forget that DOMS is your body’s way of expressing the inflammatory response that occurs after training. This inflammatory response is necessary when telling your body it needs to improve later.

By implementing methods to decrease this response—foam rolling, ice baths, and other recovery methods—DOMS or general soreness can decrease but at the possible expense of your training adaptation.

Have a big game tomorrow and you cannot be sore? Adding 10 min of foam rolling after your training session can help. But, if you’re training hard to improve your strength for next season, just accept the soreness as part of the adaptation process.

Things to Remember When You’re Foam Rolling

Tight muscles are normal if you are training hard and pushing your body to excel on the field and in the gym. Tight muscles can affect how you feel, how you move, and how you perform. Despite what mobility gurus may say, there is not enough evidence to support the claim that foam rolling changes your tissues in the long-term to help you move better. Rather, there is extensive evidence that shows movement, and progressively loading those movements, helps change your tissues in a way that will improve your performance in your sport.

If you are looking to improve your range of motion and strength in the long run, ditch the foam roller and start moving. If your tight muscles are giving you pain, consider foam rolling instead of popping an ibuprofen.

References:

1. Sargent, D., Clarke, R. (2018). Strength and Conditioning for Female Athletes. Mobility for Performance in Female Athletes. Marlborough: Crowood. pp 111-139.

2. Sullivan, K.M., Silvey, D.B.J., Button, D.C., and Behm, D.G. (2013). Roller massager application to the hamstrings increases sit and reach range of motion within 5 to 10 seconds without performance impairments. The International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy, 8(3), pp 228-236.

3. Stone, M., Ramsey, M.W., Kinser, A.M., O’Bryant, H.S., Ayers, C., and Sands, W.A., (2006). Stretching: acute and chronic? The potential consequences. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 28(6), pp. 66-74.

4. Aarimaa, V., Rantanen, J., Best, T., Schultz, E., Corr, D., & Kalimo, H. (2004). Mild eccentric stretch injury in skeletal muscle causes transient effects on tensile load and cell proliferation. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 14, 367–372.

5. Webb, A. (2016) Review of the literature: Functional movement development of athletic performance. Journal of Australian Strength and Conditioning, 24 (3), pp. 23-40.

The post The Truth About Foam Rolling appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

It’s frustrating, defeating, and often comes with an influx of fears of never being able to return to the field as the athlete you were before. Just because your friend who tore her ACL became slower, maybe gained some weight, and never seemed to trust her body on the field again does not mean you are destined for the same outcome.

Tearing your ACL sucks.

It’s frustrating, defeating, and often comes with an influx of fears of never being able to return to the field as the athlete you were before. Just because your friend who tore her ACL became slower, maybe gained some weight, and never seemed to trust her body on the field again does not mean you are destined for the same outcome.

Yes, you most likely won’t return to play until nine to twelve months post-surgery—but you get to decide what type of athlete you are when you do step back onto the field. In order to take the necessary steps for recovery, let’s talk about why the injury occurred in the first place.

What Caused Your Tear?

An ACL tear (non-impact) occurs when the musculature around the knee is not strong enough to absorb the forces being placed on it from movements such as sprinting, cutting, and landing. The muscle may not be strong enough because the joint is improperly loaded (poor body control), overly fatigued (too much volume for the body to recover from), or just lacking adequate strength overall.

If the muscle is not able to fully absorb the force, the force must travel to less equipped tissues such as tendons, ligaments, and bone. The result? Sprains, strains, tears, and breaks.

After the tears and heartache, it’s time for surgery to kickstart the recovery process.

ACL Recovery Process

Within the first couple of months after surgery, your physical therapist will help you regain strength and stability at the knee joint in order to handle your body weight. Once you achieve full range of motion at the joint through flexion and extension and can demonstrate stability at the knee in movements such as hopping, skipping, and jumping, it’s time to take the next step.

Most athletes are cleared to return to play at around the nine or twelve-month mark. During the six to nine months after the initial physical therapy stages, you get to decide the athlete you develop into before you return to play. Strength training is the base of athletic development and the necessary next step in your recovery process.

Post-Injury Athleticism

As we have talked about before, strength training is an essential component of athletic development process. Strength is the base from which all other athletic qualities are built—such as speed, agility, and power. Training that emphasizes the development of movement patterns while acquiring new skills (such as through weightlifting) helps an athlete develop her athleticism a step further.

Through weightlifting, an athlete must focus on the position of her body in order to perform the technical movement pattern of a snatch or clean and jerk. This focus on body position helps an athlete develop neuromuscular coordination.

These improved mind-body connections help the athlete be more coordinated, balanced, and aware of her body in space. The combined benefits from strength training, including an increase in absolute and relative strength, body control, balance, and coordination, help improve your athleticism.

While it is unfortunate that most females are not introduced to the weight room until after an ACL tear, the injury becomes a blessing in disguise when considering the opportunity to help her develop into an even better athlete than she was before. Weightlifting produces more coordinated and conditioned athletes. These athletes are less likely to have the injury re-occur.

Develop Mental Strength Post-Injury

After an ACL injury, it’s common for a female to fail to return to the field as the same player she was before. Often this is not because of lack of ability, but more so lack of mental strength and confidence.

Too often we see a female athlete’s carer end early because she isn’t confident and is hesitant about pushing her body to the extent she did before (and of course she is, her body literally gave out on her before).

Introducing strength training to a female post surgery helps her become more than just strong and coordinated. Lifting weights helps her develop the confidence in her body to step back on the field without hesitation her body will fail on her again. Remember, the best athletes on the field encompass a combination of strength, skill, and mental fortitude.

If an athlete isn’t confident, she can’t showcase her strength and skills to their fullest extent. Strength training helps her get more than physically strong. It helps her become confident that her body won’t fail her again.

Weight Gain Concern During Recovery

Another common fear we hear is gaining weight after surgery, but instead of getting scared, get pro-active. Many females in high school and college can “get away” with eating whatever they want because their activity level is so high. But after surgery (or post-athletic career), your activity level is going to significantly decrease. This change in lifestyle means you need to address your food intake differently.

Your body needs adequate calories to fuel the recovery process. Where you choose to get those calories determines how well you will recover. With less activity and muscle use, your body is more inclined to break your muscle down for protein sources. That saying “if you don’t use it you lose it” is true.

To prevent muscle loss, ” target=”_blank”>make sure to have protein in each meal so it is available in your bloodstream when your body needs it to repair. Remember that recovery is a process that cannot occur without enough energy to fuel it. Choose to energize this process through a combination of complex carbs, veggies, and healthy fats. Remember, because you are less active while recovering, slower release energy types are more fitting to match your energy needs.

Instead of worrying about weight gain and muscle loss, take charge of your recovery process. Fill your plate 4-5x a day with a palm size of protein, two or three handfuls of veggies and complex carbs, and one to three thumb size servings of fat. With this combo, you will be sure to conserve your muscle and energize the recovery of your injury.

Recovery Is Up to You

Recovering from an injury can be frustrating, deflating, and may make you feel like you are helpless—but how you respond to your injury is completely up to you.

The best athletes are those that look at hardships in the face and decide how to grow in response. Tearing your ACL is heartbreaking. But only you can decide how to make something positive come from it. Find a coach, step into the weight room, and fuel your body to become an even better athlete than you were before your injury.

You might also like

• How A Torn ACL Changed My Life
• A New Look At The Cause Of ACL Injuries
• Why Non-Contact ACL Injuries Should Never Happen

The post So You Tore Your ACL, Now What? appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Less is not always more—and more is not always better.

The relationship between training load, injury, and performance is much too complex to simplify in a ‘do more’ or ‘do less’ statement. Rather, we have to consider the bigger picture when working towards a certain goal.

Trying to improve your game? Adding another two nights of practice may not get you the results you want. Rolled your ankle at softball practice? Taking three days off may not get you back on the field as intended.

Less is not always more—and more is not always better.

The relationship between training load, injury, and performance is much too complex to simplify in a ‘do more’ or ‘do less’ statement. Rather, we have to consider the bigger picture when working towards a certain goal.

Training Is a Necessary Stressor

Training is a necessary stressor to create a need for improvement or adaptation. Without training, there is no need to improve—but with stress comes fatigue. And with more fatigue, the less your body is able to perform.

Recovery methods allow us to manage our fatigue. Adequate recovery is necessary to allow the body to reduce fatigue and return it to its baseline (or level of performance prior to training).

It is critical that you increase recovery and reduce your training load (time and intensity in sports training) when you want to drive what is called super-compensation.

Super-compensation is the ability of your body to recover from hard training, allowing you to improve your fitness above the baseline level. During super-compensation, your body is able to reduce fatigue. A reduction in fatigue is key when promoting high performance. Our favorite saying at Relentless is “fatigue masks fitness.”

Without a reduction in fatigue, your body will never be able to showcase the results of your hard work in training. If you consistently add to your training and never allow for a decrease in fatigue, your body will never show your improved “fitness.”

You need to train to stress your body to want to improve, but remember that you need to recover in order for your body to adapt. In addition, you need to decrease your training load when it is time to showcase this adaptation through improved performance.

There is a limit to how low you can drop your training load before you start to see a decrease in performance. This is because a certain amount of training is necessary to stimulate your body to maintain your level of fitness.⁵

Think of this as your minimum training volume, or the minimum amount of training you need to maintain your level of performance. If you drop below this training volume for too long you will start to see a regression in your fitness level.

Training Goals and Performance

Training is a stressor that pushes your body to want to adapt and improve. Prior to your season, the goal of training is to improve your fitness. This means that you have high training volumes, high fatigue, and an overall reduction in your ability to showcase your performance—remember fatigue masks fitness.

When it is time to perform, the goal of your training needs to shift from improving to maintaining. A minimum or “maintenance” amount of training is necessary during your season in order to help maintain the strength and work capacity you built during the offseason.

Introducing loads that stimulate your body enough to maintain this fitness allows you to manage your levels of fatigue, reduce your chance of injury, and promote high levels of performance. If you stop lifting altogether you drop below this maintenance level, and you start to get into trouble.

Less stress equals more time for super-compensation and less fatigue. But when there is too much time away from the weight room, your body is no longer receiving the stimulus it needs to maintain the level of fitness you started the season with.

Without a stimulus, your performance is going to decrease, nagging injuries start to rise, and all your hard earned gains seem to fly out the window. This means a certain amount of lifting and practice time is necessary during your season so you maintain what you previously worked for during the off-season.

Keep in mind that the amount of training you do needs to be managed so that your fatigue levels don’t get too high.² Remember, fatigue masks fitness. When training loads are too high, your fatigue is going to be through the roof and your performance is going to plummet.

Training Load and Injury Risk

Injuries happen when your body is exposed to more stress than it can handle. This stress can be acute—like when high forces lead you to sprain your knee ligament during a cut in a soccer game. This stress can also be cumulative—like when your wrist starts to nag after three intense practices, two games, and no days off between them.

Remember, the total amount of stress your body experiences over time also includes stressors outside of your training. This means three intense practices, two games, no days off, plus a calculus exam, breaking up with your boyfriend, and being homesick is a recipe for an overly fatigued athlete.

When fatigue is high, your risk of injury also increases. Adding more training load to an athlete that is already highly fatigued spells trouble. You’re heading straight for decreased performance and increased injury risk.

If fatigue remains high a drop in performance could become permanent. This is why adapting proper recovery techniques and dropping training volumes is necessary to allow your body to not only recover but to showcase those improvements when it matters most. Have you ever had a big game on Friday then on Monday you feel run down, achy, and didn’t perform the way you want? This means it’s time to implement a decrease in your training load.

Focusing on things that promote recovery (such as sleep and nutrition) will help decrease your levels of fatigue. Less fatigue means a greater ability to showcase your athletic skills come game day. It is important to remember that there is a minimum training load you need in order to maintain your performance.

Taking the entire week off is going to drop you down below this maintenance volume. Drop too low, and you will actually increase the chance of injury when you return to the field. Without maintaining your work capacity, you become de-conditioned to handle the workloads your body was previously able to handle.

This is why taking time completely off after an injury is not suggested by sports physiologists.⁴ Athletes who take full rest after an injury not only decrease their overall fitness and delay their return to play, but they also increase their risk of injury when they do return.

Rather, it is in the athlete’s best interest to implement pain-free training during the injury recovery process so that she is able to return to play faster (and her injury is able to catch up to the rest of her body sooner thanks to the crossover effect). The athlete’s risk of injury decreases because her work capacity did not diminish.¹

After a larger injury, like an ACL tear that requires surgery, full rest is needed to give tissues time to repair. Studies show that early loading can improve return to play time and by gradually progressing loading throughout the recovery process protection from future reinjury is provided.

A True Balancing Act

When it comes to performance, athletes (and their coaches) need to remember you cannot both improve and perform at the same time. You need to have designated periods where training loads are high and improvements are being sought after. You also need periods where training loads to lowered to allow for recovery, adaptation, and the opportunity to showcase those improvements through higher performance.

Instead, get in the weight room and train around your injury so you can maintain your work capacity and fitness level. Manage your workload progressively and you will find yourself returning to play faster than you thought.

References:

1. Gabbett TJ. Debunking the myths about training load, injury, and performance: empirical evidence, hot topics and recommendations for practitioners. J Sports Med Published Online First: 26 October 2018. Doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2018-099784.

2. Harrison PW, Johnston RD. Relationship between training load, fitness, and injury over an Australian Rules Football Preseason. J Strength Cond Res2017;31:2686–93.

3. Milewski MD, Skaggs DL, Bishop GA, et al. Chronic lack of sleep is associated with increased sports injuries in adolescent athletes. J Pediatr Orthop2014;34:129–33.

4. Colby MJ, Dawson B, Peeling P, et al. Repeated exposure to established high-risk workload scenarios improves non-contact injury prediction in Elite Australian footballers. Int J Sports Physiol Perform2018;15:1–22.

5. Gabbett TJ, Hulin BT. Activity and recovery cycles and skill involvements of successful and unsuccessful elite rugby league teams: a longitudinal analysis of evolutionary changes in National Rugby League match-play. J Sports Sci2018;36:180–90.

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